Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Saturday night is not alright for first dates

Notes from a branché resto-slash wine bar:

Get seated next to vaguely familiar politician conversing with a holdover from the Kajagoogoo days of new wave '80s. Realise vaguely familiar politician is, ahem, Andrew ClearWood. Date does not seem to be going well, Andy's credit card is already on the bar by the time they're eating their first tapas. Fifteen minutes later, they leave, taxi boy out the front, fearless leader to the back, where he goes to bathroom. Comes back out when he senses the coast is clear. No visible signs of grinding teeth.

Their seats are taken up about 10 minutes later, this time by a somewhat attractive mid-40s woman and an older, distinguished-looking gentlemen. Said woman is wearing a white wool dress that's even shorter than anything I've seen on women down on Ontario east of St-Hubert. (Now I know what they mean when they say mini-skirts shouldn't be worn by anyone over 25, much less 45.) Short skirts on cold nights? Not a good idea: no one is turned on by blue lips, facial or otherwise. She's draping herself drunkenly over the gent, who is neither welcoming nor throwing off her advances. Instead, he seems to be drinking heavily in order to catch up to her state of being, which, it turns out, is a complete act, as she proves by calling and speaking coherently to her children (I'm guessing here) when he steps away.

A couple then sits between drunk couple and us, looking fearful and uncertain, now that they're away from the friendly confines of the hip restos of St-Laurent and Sherbrooke. They look like they'll be heading to Shed Café for drinks afterwards. He's dressed in the requisite various shades of black, completely indistinguishable from the regular crowd of night vultures. She's gorgeous, perfect skin, looks like Vanessa Williams at the Golden Globes, except that she allows herself to occasionally eat more than one meal a day. She carries most, if not all, of the conversation, he smiles absently at her, probably wondering what his chances are for a little somethin somethin at the end of the night and also whether it's worth waiting out. Because? While she does carry the conversation, it's mostly all about her. From what I'm gathering, she's recently discovered the joys of therapy. And is re-evaluating her life, starting a conversation and deciding that, no, they shouldn't talk about that, and getting angry at him when he feigns interest. Because she doesn't want to talk about it.

The milliner and I decide at this point that, while the food and wine are really good in a nice setting, we've had enough.Oh, and we adopted a cat.

The bar is Pullmans, on Parc near Sherbrooke. I forgot to mention there was a table of programmer-type guys from Ontario, drinking and comparing the sizes of their PDAs. It was like being at a Yulblog. Kidding!The cat isn't a scratcher so much as a holder-on. And, he's an ear-nibbler. No way was I gonna give that up.